“I set View Limiting because we're all addicted to Twitter and have to go out,” said Elon Musk. daring explanation Photo: Chesnot/Getty Images Europe
Elon Musk has once again angered Twitter users. The world's richest man, who bought the social media giant for $44bn (£35bn) in December, sparked outrage on Saturday by announcing temporary limits on the number of messages users can view.
The decision sparked rumors of new technical issues at Twitter and raised questions about the impact on its financial position, given that the social media giant remains heavily dependent on ad revenue despite Musk's attempt to create a subscription model.
How will it be? does it work?
Musk initially said that verified users – those who pay for a Twitter Blue subscription – would be limited to reading 6,000 messages per day, while unverified accounts would be limited to 600 messages per day, and new unverified accounts would be capped at 300.In a sign of growing turmoil at the social media giant, Musk changed the policy twice within hours, setting a limit of 10,000 messages per day for verified users, 1,000 messages per day for unverified users, and 500 messages per day for new unverified users.< /p>
Musk called the move a “temporary emergency measure” but did not give a timeline for when it would be reversed.
Initial Tweet Reading Time Limits Why did Musk impose the limits?
According to the Tesla boss, the decision was made to “eliminate extreme levels of data extraction [and] system manipulation” on the platform.
He stated that the social media giant networks “robs data so badly that it degrades the quality of service for ordinary users.”
Musk has previously expressed dissatisfaction with artificial intelligence firms such as OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT, for using Twitter. data to train their language models.
On Friday, he said: “Almost every AI company, from start-ups to the largest corporations on Earth, has been collecting massive amounts of data.” on an emergency basis just to alleviate the outrageous valuation of some AI startups.” scraping to limit the number of posts that users can view. Photo: Anadolu Agency/Anadolu
However, there has been speculation that Twitter is battling a bug in its web app that sends requests to Twitter in an endless loop, causing crashes. its service.
Earlier this week, the company also began restricting access to its platform to anyone who is not logged into an account.
In his usual tongue-in-cheek style, Musk provided a more philosophical rationale for the move last night. tweet: “The reason I set View Limit is because we are all addicted to Twitter and have to go out. I am doing a good deed for the world here. Also, this is another view you just used.”
Will the cap affect Twitter's bottom line?
After losing major advertisers following the Musk takeover, Twitter has been hard at work in recent months to get commercial partners back. Major companies such as Volkswagen, Balenciaga, Carlsberg and Dyson canceled their website ad campaigns in November.
Twitter's U.S. ad revenue fell 59 percent over the past year, falling to $88 million (£70 million) in the weeks since April 1, according to internal data.
Since Linda Iaccarino's appointment in May, Former head of advertising for American media giant NBCUniversal, his new boss, advertisers have begun to relate to the social media platform again. GroupM, part of London-based advertising group WPP, said Twitter no longer poses a “high risk” for brands after it joined.
However, the latest policy change suggests a return to Musk's seemingly unfamiliar policies. thoughtless approach to management, which again can scare advertisers. Limiting the amount of time users spend on Twitter also invariably limits the number of times advertisers see ads.
Twitter's push to make blue checkmarks available to all followers has also eroded advertisers' trust in the site, as users have been free to impersonate well-known accounts. Tweets sent from a fake profile purporting to be Eli Lilly slashed the drug giant's value by billions in November.
The blue checkmark badges were previously only available to users and businesses whose identities were verified by Twitter. staff.
Will the new limit lead to an exodus of users from Twitter?
Musk's action provoked a furious backlash. Esther Crawford, a former director of product management at Twitter before Musk fired her, said: “Arrogance + no objection – empathy for customers – data = great way to spark billions.”
It looks like some users voted with their feet. Bluesky, a rival social network backed by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, was forced to put people on hold to join the platform due to an influx of new users.
It said: “We are still working to accommodate the large influx of users and increased traffic.”
“We are temporarily suspending registrations with Bluesky while our team continues to address existing performance issues. We will keep you posted when the invite codes are back up and running. We're excited to welcome more users to our beta soon!”
Meanwhile, the owner of Facebook Meta is reportedly gearing up to launch its own Twitter competitor called Threads, further adding to the pressure on the social media platform Mask.
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